Contemporary raiding and real-life obligations
by Amanda Dean 
May 9th 2009 at 6:00PM
An unidentified reader wrote to WoW Insider explaning that while he is in a raiding guild, his life schedule does not allow him to raid. He feels he's being left behind as groups ask for higher DPS.What practical advice is there for progressing in the game while being a player with RL obligations?
First off, I'd like to tell you that you're not an outlier, there are many of players in similar situations. Nearly all WoW players have real life obligations including work, school, and families. The two most important things to work on are balance and realistic expectations.
It's easy to get suckered into playing too much WoW. To balance WoW with life, you need to determine how much time you can spend in game, while leaving plenty to meet your other responsibilities. If you can, try to schedule WoW at regular times, that way you build relationships with folks you play with often.
You should also try to match your expectations to your availability. Some folks have more time for raiding, and will progress faster. Once you've established the amount time you can/should play, you can tailor your personal goals to meet them. You can spend some of your time researching specs, strategies, and gear. That way you can maximize your in-game experience.
If you simply can't fit in time with your raiding guild, or they don't have space for a part timer, you may be in the wrong guild. There are a number of guilds, like mine, that cater toward working adults. While we do some kind of raid nearly every evening, our crew changes. Weekends work better for some folks, and weekdays work better for others. We're pretty flexible about who goes when. We mostly do 10 man content, and we won't be downing Ulduar any time soon, but we do enjoy ourselves and make progress.
Check your realm forums for a guild that suits your style. If you're willing to make a transfer, you can look around at other servers or in the guild recruitment forum. Take some time to get to know a potential guild before you make a commitment.
Will Blizz do anything to help those wanting to LFG with other players?
Blizzard has done quite a bit t to help make raiding accessible to all kinds of players. Where raids once required 40 hardcore players who nearly always worked together as a team. I have no idea how they managed WoW and life back then. Times have changed: raids are now legitimately PUGgable and even casual players have a shot at them. The "Looking for Group" tool has been widely embraced on alot of servers. If you prove yourself to be competent and socially acceptable in raiding PUGs you will often get find yourself getting tells asking you to fill a spot in a raid. You can also join a guild of similar folks, and PUG out spots that your guild can't fill.
It is now possible for players of all commitment levels to experience most of the content. Just plan ahead and expect to be flexible.
Good luck, and good hunting.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Guilds, Instances, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Jack May 9th 2009 6:15PM
I'm in a raiding guild but really don't have time to raid as a college student. But my guild often does 10-mans or alt runs on Fridays and Saturdays, so I'm still able to participate in my favorite part of the game.
Groth May 9th 2009 6:20PM
The single most important thing seems to be realism. If you can't raid too frequently, make sure your guild has a policy like Amanda's.
There's not going to be a useful relationship either way if your guild wants more DPS from you, but you can't spend the time gearing up- that will end up with you being passed over and not getting any DPS improving gear.
Be brutally honest with yourself- how often can you definately contribute to raiding? Personally, I've got so much going on that I can only manage to raid twice a week.
I can fit in mats grinding almost every night, but for concentrated raiding, I limit myself to 2 nights a week.
It also keeps me employed and in a relationship whilst getting to see Ulduar!
Retropally May 9th 2009 6:25PM
Its very, very easy to get sucked into this game and let it take over. In the next few weeks I, along with a lot of 16-18 year olds in England will have incredibly important exams. I've cancelled my subscription until my exams are over, and although I was trying to influence myself to carry on playing...it had to be done so I can concentrate fully on my exams as the games not going to run away from me, thankfully.
Gessilea May 9th 2009 6:27PM
" I have no idea how they managed WoW and life back then."
That's easy: most people didn't. I was an officer in a 40 man raiding guild back when MC and BWL were the only games in town. There were maybe 10 groups total doing 40 man raids on my server, and if you were in one of those guilds, you were expected to show up 4-6 nights a week for 4-8 hours of raiding (I believe there was one group on my server that only raided twice a week, but they were the exception). The nights you weren't raiding, you were farming (which meant gathering or killing elites in Tyr's hand, because there were no dailies).
A lot of the time spent on those raids was wasted time trying to keep 40 people coordinated. Setting up a raid easily took an hour, and downtime for buffing/drinking/people being afk could be atrocious. Yeah, you got a lot of attention on your server, but was it worth it? Raiders (and especially officers) had a high burnout rate, and when that happened it usually meant they would leave the game for weeks or months (or permanently). Chances are you didn't like a lot of the people in your guild, or even know all of them all that well. And have a life outside of the game? No way.
automator May 9th 2009 7:57PM
This is exactly why all the "Bring back pre-BC servers" suggestions on the official forums crack me up. No one remembers how truly awful it really was.
Alavan May 11th 2009 11:38AM
I think the people who ask for these types of servers or any kind of "heroic" pre-BC raids are people who didn't get to experience pre-BC content (myself included). Although I think that classic servers are a bad idea, I would like blizzard to help us have a reason to revisit pre-BC raids, whatever that may be.
Gessilea May 10th 2009 12:50AM
@Alavan: Well, the best of the 40 mans was almost certainly Naxx, and I think it's awesome they redid that one (I quit raiding before my guild got to Naxx). I think achievements got some people doing the old raids again, but I'm not sure it would be worth reworking MC or BWL. When you compare the fights there to what we're doing now, even heroic bosses are generally more interesting. People who talk about how challenging the old fights are are usually forgetting that most of the challenge was getting 5 druids to show up (or 8 tanks, or 40 people with fire potions, and so on and so on). The fights themselves were mostly tank-n-spank.
Santreal May 13th 2009 6:32PM
Im in a long distance relationship and spend weeks at a time away from my computer and away from WoW. The guild I had been in for over a year (2.5 years prior to a merge), many officers of which are friends in the game I have known for longer, recently kicked me because my schedule didnt fit with the new guild ideal of progressive hardcore.
When I am at home and able to play I have access to lengthy periods of time in which to do whatever I like. And sometimes I like to raid, nothing special, just the basic instances that most guilds have on farm, i'll probably never even see Ulduar. Finding a guild that both allowed me to raid with them on their farming runs as and when I was available whilst also understanding that im not always around and not penalising me for it was difficult, but I have found one where the GM is also an old friend and understands my situation.
So to those who may also have RL responsibilities, there are guilds out there for you regardless of your availability or whatever aspect of the game your interested in.
Behr May 9th 2009 6:35PM
My Guild master sat down with me a weekend or two ago to discuss the complaints he got of me 'going afk or leaving in raids with little or no warning'.
I reminded him that when I applied I stated that I was an EMT and that it was quite probable that I'll have to leave with little or no notice.
Noone complained since, however, I also haven't been raiding as much. I realized that even though I have a reasonable 'excuse' for ditching raids, Its not fair to the other guildies that I leave once every two raids or so.
(Note, I don't play when 'on call' but I do have the radio with me at all times and when something local happens I go...I have the ability to help, and in some cases, even save lives, and not to do so because I was playing a video game would be ludicrous...)
Bruski May 11th 2009 1:09PM
One of the best tank in our guild is a fireman who plays while on call. He can play from home (and does) but his lag there is too bad for raiding (think 1-3 seconds).
While on call, he usually only gets called out maybe 3 times in 6 hours, and the rest of the guild understands, and he performs well enough that we accept and love having him in raids, though we know he might have to "/afk fire" at any time (it's very rare that he has to leave in the middle of a boss fight, except maybe the 15 minutes of kel thuzad)
It probably also helps that he's well known for being willing to bench himself if a night looks too busy or if his lag is too bad (he actually took himself out of our Sarth3c kill because he thought his lag was hurting the raid (and he always finds a replacement first))
Burcemage May 9th 2009 6:49PM
I Consider myself really lucky, my Guild made sure too make are raiding schedule around my work and family schedule. Try too find a guild that is willing too help you. Or even the Mather are naxx run they would start off on a Thursday, but i wasn't able too attend, but they would have the continuous on Sunday and monday and i would be invited for that one.
Tethra May 9th 2009 7:09PM
Amanda's guild sounds a lot like the one I'm in. It's a guild that caters to working adults and college students. We all have the understanding that real-life has first priority, so none of us are expected to be on during a certain time period. Hell, one of our tanks is a fireman, so he's only on every couple days. We sort of have a raiding schedule, but it's flexible. Anyone in the guild can schedule a raid, and people sign up for raids on our guild website. If we can't completely fill a 25-man with guildies, we pug the remaining spots and it seems to work out.
Janelle May 9th 2009 10:45PM
It's funny because my experience was the total opposite of Gessilea... I was in a raiding guild and the main healer a lot of the times.. but my guild was very close knit and we didn't require much of anything except that people respect each other and try to make raids.
It seems nowadays, I get burnt out way too easily (I'm talkin doing an 8 hour naxx run over the weekend and that alone burns me out!) ... but I don't really see any guilds that are still able to be pretty laid back while progressing at the same time. I'd love to find a guild nowadays that didn't make me stress about whether I should log on the game just so I don't get gkicked lol..
Finnicks May 9th 2009 7:43PM
I have a really, REALLY hard time getting any raid content done. In fact, since BC, I haven't set foot in a single raid instance except one off-the-wall VA pug.
It's really frustrating because I'm taking 16 units in college, as well as working 20-25 hours as a manager in a fast food restaurant, which means my work schedule shuffles around a lot. So I can't commit to "every tuesday", because the second I do the next week my boss schedules me to work Tuesday night.
Ugh.
EpochAWOL May 9th 2009 7:57PM
I have the same kind of issue. I travel for work. I never know if next Tuesday I will be: in a car on an eight hour drive home, on an airplane flying to my next install, on the opposite side of town, working late to finish something up, sitting in a hotel room with horrendous "high-speed internet," or actually sitting in my office at home, ready to raid. It's frustrating, but I can't quit my job to serve WoW. As such, I content myself to run dailies and level alts. I would love to see raid content, but I end up just sitting on the sidelines watching everybody else have fun. I would up and quit the game if it weren't so addictive and most of my friends are in my guild. And I'm just not interested enough to deal with PUGs.
Eisengel May 10th 2009 5:53AM
I almost have the same problem, but it's basically reversed. The people in my guild are nice, but way too inconsistent. At one point in February I think we were debating 2 Naxx-10 runs or seeing if we could get an extra 5 to 7 for a Naxx-25. Now I'm lucky if I can run a heroic once a night since attendance just dropped like a stone.
AyaJulia May 9th 2009 7:56PM
"Will Blizz do anything to help those wanting to LFG with other players?"
I'm pretty sure you missed the point of this question entirely. I believe the point was not "LFG to play with other people" but "LFG with my friend/significant other."
ISpeaking from personal experience, it's a headache to stick yourself in LFG and have to stipulate to every tard who sends a blind invite that X other person absolutely must also be welcome in the group. And we don't necessarily want to lead a group, either. I think the writer of the letter was looking for a way to LFG in a pair with his/her spouse or other significant other.
And no, hardly anyone reads note text. Particularly now that you don't even need to check it for spec.
AyaJulia May 9th 2009 7:59PM
To clarify, my reason for nitpicking this was not to make miss "mandy" (rofl) look bad, but because I'm sure I'm not the only person who might actually welcome some commentary on the actual question at hand.
automator May 9th 2009 8:00PM
"And we don't necessarily want to lead a group, either."
Just because you start out leading doesn't mean you have any greater responsibilities once the run starts. God knows how many times I've accepted an invite to tank and then been passed lead. Start a group, invite your friend, then fill in the other slots. Then pass lead to the tank.
AyaJulia May 9th 2009 8:01PM
@automator: I like how you say "then fill in the other slots" like it's a simple matter, rather than the whole reason we don't want to lead the group. You should find work in comedy.